Aethlon Medical at Emerging Growth Virtual Conference: Oncology Focus and Financial Strategy

On Wednesday, 26 March 2025, Aethlon Medical (NASDAQ: AEMD) participated in the Emerging Growth Virtual Conference. The company provided an update on its strategic focus on oncology and its innovative Hemopurifier device. While Aethlon boasts a solid cash position and no debt, it faces challenges related to trial logistics and market valuation.

Key Takeaways

• Aethlon Medical reported a cash balance of $4.8 million at the end of December with no debt.
• The company is focusing its efforts on oncology trials in Australia and India.
• The Hemopurifier device is unique with no directly comparable devices on the market.
• Aethlon aims to raise additional funds to support ongoing clinical trials.

Financial Results

• Cash Position: Aethlon ended December with approximately $4.8 million in cash.
• Debt: The company has no debt on its balance sheet.
• Trading Valuation: Aethlon is trading at approximately two times its cash value.
• Revenue: As a development-stage life science company, Aethlon reported no revenues.

Operational Updates

• Oncology Trials (Australia):

- The first cancer patient was treated in January.

- Trials are conducted across three hospitals in Sydney, Gulf Coast, and Adelaide.

- The protocol was adjusted to shorten the run-in period for patients unresponsive to Keytruda or Opdivo.

• Oncology Trials (India):

- A similar trial is planned but faces logistical challenges due to import/export requirements.

• COVID Studies (India):

- Concluded due to a lack of patients in intensive care units.

• Kidney Transplant Area:

- Published data in the Transplant Immunology Journal to attract potential partnerships.

Future Outlook

• Oncology Trials: Aethlon is committed to progressing its oncology trials in Australia and India, with plans to treat more patients soon.
• Fundraising: The company anticipates needing to raise additional funds to counterbalance cash burn and hopes to do so at higher valuations as milestones are achieved.
• Corporate Partnerships: Aethlon is exploring opportunities for corporate partnerships and licensing deals.

Q&A Highlights

• Hemopurifier Uniqueness: CEO Jim Franks emphasized the unique nature of the Hemopurifier, designed to remove cancerous particles and viral diseases.
• Competition: ExThera and CytoSorbents were mentioned as competitors, although their devices operate differently.
• Trial Size: The oncology safety trial aims to involve nine to 18 patients, with efficacy trials expected to include hundreds, smaller than typical drug trials.
• Market Disconnect: Franks addressed the market disconnect, noting the company’s trading value at approximately two times cash, potentially due to clinical trial costs.

For more details, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Emerging Growth Virtual Conference:

Anna, Host: Medical Inc. Trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol AEMD. It’s a medical therapeutic company focused on developing products to treat cancer and life threatening infectious diseases. Happy to welcome back its CEO, Jim Franks. Welcome back to the conference today, Jim.

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Thank you, Anna. And thanks again for the opportunity to give folks a little bit of an update on Athlon Medical. As Anna mentioned, we’re a small medical device company. Here’s one of our devices. It’s about the size of a dialysis cartridge, but it has a different functionality.

It is designed to remove cancerous particles called exosomes or extracellular vesicles and life threatening viral diseases. We have we ended December with about $4,800,000 in cash. We have no debt on our balance sheet, and I’m reflecting my long time role here as CFO to start with that. I was named CEO as well, in November of twenty three, and I’ve tried to focus the company very heavily on the oncology indication. I think our device has a lot of promise there.

And I just wanted to give a quick update before we take any questions. At the January, we treated our first patient, cancer patient in Australia. It was at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. There were no issues at the seven day safety follow-up checkup of the patient. It is the first hopefully of nine to 18 patients in this small safety trial that’s designed to treat patients with solid tumors.

There are three hospitals involved in Australia, in Sydney, Gulf Coast, and as I said, Adelaide, Australia. We have a similar trial set up in India, and we’re just working through some logistical issues. India’s stiffened their import export requirements, and we think we’re pretty far along the process of getting that trial up and running. I’m often asked why Australia and why India? Australia has great science, great hospitals, the world class principal investigators.

Steve LaRosa, our chief medical officer, has run clinical trials in Australia before And, it’s also helpful that they have a life science tax credit that currently is about 43.5%. This is a cash incentive. They call it a tax credit, but it’s not a tax rebate. It’s actually a cash rebate once a year, and it currently is at about 43 and a half percent of expenses in Australia. And they’re trying to bolster their life science industry with that kind of incentive.

And the company’s done a lot of clinical trial work in India. We have very good relationship with some doctors that are big supporters of our product, and I wanted to keep them involved. So there’s a lot of history there and I, you know, the FDA has accepted data from India in the past and I don’t expect an issue with that or the Australian data down the road. Since we treated that first patient, we did change our protocol on the oncology trial in Australia. In my opinion, it’s improved it.

It’s shortened. There’s not a two month run-in period now. It’s simply for patients that are either not getting better or getting worse, that that are taking Keytruda or Opdivo, which are the principal cancer therapeutics in this moment. Those drugs are great when they work, but they work only to thirty percent to forty percent of the time. So we’re hoping to target some of the sixty percent to seventy percent that fail, that treatment of Opdivo and Keytruda and we’re looking forward to treating more patients hopefully soon.

That’s our main focus right now. There’s a lot of history of the viruses. We’re monitoring viral outbreaks, but no particular news on that front at the moment. Anna, that was a quick update here. I know we have limited time.

Anna, Host: Great. Are you ready for some questions?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Of course.

Anna, Host: Wonderful. Alright. We’ll talk a little bit about your focus on oncology and infectious diseases. However, you’ve also had news about the hemopurifier’s potential in the kidney transplant area. So can you give us an update on that?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Happy to. As Anna mentioned, we did put out a press release about an article that was published in a in a well regarded peer reviewed journal called the Transplant Immunology Journal. Prior to the board naming me CEO, the the company did a lot of work looking at the use of our product in the organ transplantation field, particularly with kidneys. And a lot of data had been generated and I thought, why not publish the data? It may lead to corporate partnerships, licensing opportunities down the road.

We wanted to let the people that follow that industry know that the Hemo Purifier could provide some benefits to those organs that are being harvested and transplanted and put in to help save people’s lives.

Anna, Host: Perfect. And Frank wants to know, is there anything like your hemopurifier in the market currently? And what’s the closest competitive solution?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: There’s nothing exactly like the Hemopurifier. Again, this is what it looks like. There are three or four extracorporeal devices that use different mechanisms of action, and they’re not focused on removing exosomes, extracellular vesicles, monocilated viral particles like we are. Probably the closest device is the SARAF device by ExThera. It’s a privately held company in Northern California, and they’ve done some work in COVID, and I believe they’re exploring cancer as well.

But again, a different mechanism of action, private company. I’m off often asked by investors and potential investors about CytoSorbents. They’re a publicly traded company in New Jersey. They’re focused on reduction of inflammation, or at least that’s been their historical focus. Again, completely different product.

It’s beads versus fibers in our case and a different binding mechanism. Those are probably the two closest, I would say. Yes.

Anna, Host: And Sabrina wants to know what type of approvals are required for such devices?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Medical devices require two steps of clinical trials versus drugs that require three. So the the the first step is the safety trial phase. That’s what we’re doing in Australia and soon in India. And then there’s the efficacy trial. These are typically much smaller trials than drug trials.

As I mentioned, we’re looking at nine to 18 patients in our oncology trial in India and in Australia. And, we we have not done the efficacy trial phase yet. So I can’t speculate what number of patients would be required, but it would not be thousands. It would be perhaps hundreds. I I it’s it’s up to the regulatory body.

But again, much smaller factor of 10 or more smaller than than a drug trial and two phases rather than three.

Anna, Host: And with regard to your COVID studies in India, are you moving to treat all similar viruses with this technology?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: We, actually concluded that like in The US, there were just weren’t any COVID patients in the intensive care units. The so so we to to save costs and stop banging our head against the wall, we decided to stop that trial. So our entire focus in India is the soon to be up and running oncology trial.

Anna, Host: And Phoenix has a financial question just saying you’re trading at two times cash with no debt. Is that correct? And where do you think the disconnect is?

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: That’s exactly right. That’s about where we are trading and his or her analysis is on the money. I just think I mean, this is just my opinion, but, you know, these trials take time, and we are burning cash. We have no like, all small development stage, life science companies in regulated industries, We have no revenues, so we will need to raise money to offset the burn until we hit these milestones. Hopefully, we’ll raise money at higher valuations down the road as we hit these milestones.

But I I imagine that’s the issue, but it could be other factors. It’s it’s hard to say.

Anna, Host: Absolutely. Well, Jim, tell us some closing remarks for our viewers today.

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Sure. Well, I very much like the the listeners to, keep an eye on Aethlon Medical, as we move forward in these oncology trials. I mean, personally, it’s important to me. I I I think our device can help people. We’ve all had family members suffer from and die from cancer.

It’s just awful. And our product could be very helpful. So I just if people would track us, I’d be grateful.

Anna, Host: Wonderful. Well, thank you, Jim, so much. We appreciate you, and we hope to see you again real soon with some more great updates.

Jim Franks, CEO, Aethlon Medical: Thank you very much. Have a good conference.

Anna, Host: Alright. Alright, everyone. So GeoVax Labs, they were supposed to be on next, but they have to postpone to April. And that completes day one, so we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning at 9AM eastern for day two of our virtual investor conference. Thanks, everyone, for watching.

We’ll see you tomorrow.

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